“Good. Because Dad already has the papers drawn up,” he announced proudly.
“Your dad already knows? You told them you were going to ask me to marry you?” I asked disbelievingly.
“Yes. I told them I bought a ring when I was in Dallas, before I came back from my trip.”
“That’s why they showed up in Houston,” I surmised.
“They would have anyway, Kel, whether I’d told them about the ring or not.”
The ring. I looked down at the ring again, the large, beautiful symbol from Liam that declared I was his.
“I am yours,” I whispered as I looked up at him.
“Yes you are, Hellcat. All mine,” he declared as he pulled me into his arms.
I shut my eyes tightly, wondering how I could be so happy, and at the same time have such a grief-stricken, heavy heart. Liam pulled away first, stroking his finger down my face.
“Kel, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I swear. I’m so happy. It’s just hard, you know, being so happy and so sad at the same time.”
“I know, baby. I’m sorry about the timing of all of this,” he began.
“No, it’s perfect. You are perfect,” I murmured, pulling his lips back down to mine. Liam slid his hands down my ribcage, brushing his thumb across my breast. I sighed, realizing as my body came to life how long it had been since we’d been together. He obviously had the same thought, for his hands made quick work of the buttons down the back of my dress. Stumbling into the bedroom, he paused long enough to pull the door partially to, leaving it cracked so we could hear Masen if he cried out. As he tugged my dress down, my hands found the button on his pants.
“No matter how long we’re married, I’ll never get tired of the feel of your skin, the taste of your lips,” he whispered, laying me back on the bed and dropping my dress to the floor.
“I hope not, Covington, because I plan to spend a lot of nights re-acquainting you with them,” I whispered, pulling him down on top of me. As he struggled to free himself from his pants, I pushed his dress shirt off his shoulders, placing soft kisses across his chest. When I began to move lower, I could feel his erection against my stomach.
“God, what you do to me,” Liam moaned, pulling my face up to kiss me. He ravaged my mouth with his tongue, and then tugged at my bottom lip with his teeth while sliding his hands down around my hips. “Still too many clothes on, Hellcat,” he whispered, moving his mouth down the slim column of my throat. Continuing downward, he worked his hands behind my back and unclasped my bra. I shrugged out of it and dropped it beside the bed as his mouth closed over my breast.
“Liam,” I moaned. He paused, roaming down my body with his heated gaze and then moved his lips to the other breast, all the while sliding his hands downward.
“Still too many clothes,” he repeated, abandoning my breast. His tongue trailed down between my breasts, over my sternum, downward to my belly-button. He swirled his tongue, teasing me while I writhed beneath him. His mouth left my stomach, and as I lifted my head to see where he was going, he slid his hands down inside the lace at my hips, pulling my panties downward. His lips came down on me and I gasped, winding my hands in his hair.
“Kelly,” he breathed against my sensitive skin. His breath on me so intimately was almost enough to finish me. As his lips covered me, I moaned.
“Oh, you’re torturing me,” I gasped, barely able to stand the pleasure, not able to absorb it.
“What do you want, baby?” he whispered in the dark below me.
“You. I just want you, inside me,” I gasped out again. He slid quickly back up my body, trailing kisses, stopping to slowly nip at my skin, then gently suck, making his way back up. I could taste where he’d been when his lips came in contact with mine. It was so erotic. I was once again amazed at my acceptance of oral sex as something I could actually enjoy. Then again, I couldn’t think of anything I wouldn’t want this maddeningly beautiful man to do to me.
He pulled away, staring down at me in the moonlight. Reaching down to grasp my knee, he pulled it around his naked backside and slid his hand down, grasping my hips and pressing into me. I pushed upward, meeting his thrust when he entered, slowly filling me while he gazed into my eyes.
“I want to watch you, Hellcat. I want to watch you while you take me in,” he whispered. I nodded, mesmerized by his expressions. The way his eyes darkened as he concentrated, pushing deeper inside, working his hips, pulling out partially and then thrusting back in, knowing just how to bring me to the brink quickly. As I began to feel myself tighten on him, his eyes widened.
“Do you feel it when I do that,” I whispered. He nodded.
“Oh, yeah, Kel. When you tighten, pulling me further into you, I know you’re close. It feels so good, like you’re gripping me, working me. All for me,” he whispered.
“All for you, Liam,” I whispered back. The convulsion began. The small spasms built, the rush of warmth seemed to draw him deep into me, and then the intense waves of pure pleasure washed over me. My body bowed off the bed, trying to chase it, not wanting the orgasm to stop.
“Please, Liam…” I begged, his face hovering over mine in the moonlight.
“So damned beautiful,” he breathed as he watched me, gasping when his own orgasm took over. He closed his eyes, wrapping his arms around my shoulders while he pumped inside me, moaning with pleasure as it subsided. I held him tightly, not wanting to let him go. Ever. I loved the feeling of him so large, filling me up. I loved the knowledge he’d felt as much pleasure in my body as I’d felt in his. I loved the intimacy between us. I loved him so much it hurt.
He began to move again, turning me over and remaining inside me. I pushed upright on him, straddling him as he began to move against me again.
“Come on, baby. I know you’re close again,” he urged, grasping my hips in his hands. I formed a silent “oh” with my mouth as I watched him, working his hips, grinding into me. I felt myself quicken again. Before I’d fully recovered from the first climax, intense short waves of pleasure washed through me once more as I drew him up hard. Just when I thought sex with Liam couldn’t possibly get any better, he introduced me to multiple orgasms. I collapsed down on his chest and he stilled, reaching nirvana again.
Liam held me tightly for several moments. Finally releasing me, he moved his hands to my hair, running his fingers through it as he kissed my forehead.
“I can’t get enough of you,” Liam whispered into my hair.
“Then it’s a good thing your marrying me, Covington, so you can try this every night,” I murmured, too tired to even raise my head. He kissed my forehead, both eyelids, my nose, then back to my lips as I moaned. He chuckled as he stroked the bare skin on my back, caressing every inch of my body as our breathing stilled.
* * *
Masen’s sweet little voice called out, waking me. I blinked, focusing in the early morning sunlight which bathed the room in warmth.
“Oooh! Maaam!,” he gurgled, trying to get our attention. I raised my head, my torso trapped under Liam’s heavy arm and chest. Sometime during the night Liam had pushed Masen’s crib into the room with us. Masen peered through the bars over to where we slept, rocking on his knees as he pushed to sit back on his rump.
“Hey, Mase…are you hungry, little guy?”
I shrugged out from under Liam’s arm. He moaned and turned over, and then pushed-up on one elbow.
“I don’t know who is more adorable in the morning, you or Masen,” I commented happily as Liam grinned at me.
“No fair, youth always wins. Just look at those chubby cheeks!” he exclaimed as Masen gurgled at him.
“He always wakes up so happy,” I murmured, remembering Dana. “His mother always did too. I just hope I can keep him that way.”
Liam reached out, trailing his fingertips down my face. “Don’t worry, Kel. We will love him with everything we’ve got. He can’t help but be happy.”
He rose and grabbed his pajama pants from the foot of th
e bed. “I’ll go and get his bottle, and you can stay here.” Grabbing Masen up from his crib, he tossed him up in a short little toss into the air. “In the bed you go with momma.” He placed him beside me and then leaned over to kiss my forehead.
“I feel like I should teach him to call me ‘Aunt Kelly,’” I said as I pulled Masen against me.
“Kel, you know he’s going to call you momma anyway, and Dana would want him to,” he said, walking into the living room. My heart ached, thinking for the thousandth time Masen wouldn’t know my sister. I was determined I would tell him everything about his mother, from what games she liked when we were little to what she liked about school, music she listened to…all the good things. He would know every little wonderful detail about his mother, and he would never have to know about the bad. No, nothing negative would ever hamper his feelings for his mother.
Liam and I spent the day making phone calls, hiring a sitter to come to the hotel, and shopping for the things we would need for the baby in the weeks to come. I realized as we went through the children’s store how little I really knew about babies. When I grabbed a thick book titled, “Everything a New Mother Should Know,” Liam chuckled and pulled me close.
“I can feel your nervousness. You’re a natural. You’re going to be a great mother, so stop worrying,” he urged as he kissed my forehead.
“What if I give him the wrong food too early? When do we start feeding him real food? I don’t even know,” I worried. Liam continued to grin at me. His cell interrupted my monologue.
“Hello? Oh, hi, I’m glad to hear back from you. Yes, just a moment,” he murmured as he wandered down the aisle away from me. I assumed it was a work related call, so I turned down a different aisle with Masen. As I placed a bouncy seat in the basket, Liam reappeared, pocketing his cell phone.
“That was the police,” he informed me as I turned to him. “They had some news. Come on, let’s check out, and I’ll fill you in.” He took Masen out of the seat on the basket.
I followed a silent Liam out of the store. After he had Masen strapped in the SUV, he turned to me as he started the engine.
“They have Carter in custody. They brought him in for questioning based on the description the girls gave from the spa,” he said, checking his mirror and pulling into traffic.
“Do they think he’s the one who attacked me?”
“They think it’s a strong possibility. The girl’s description closely matched the one you gave of your intruder into the apartment, so they’re giving him another look,” he replied as he eyed me warily.
“Have they examined his foot?” I asked, thinking about the shot I took.
“I don’t know. They said they were going to question him again, and see if they could get something to stick this time to charge him with…something that would allow them to hold him.”
“He’ll just make bail,” I whispered. Liam reached over and caressed my cheek.
“Don’t worry, Kel. Whoever it was, they won’t be able to get that close to you again, I promise.”
We rode in silence for several minutes. As we neared the hotel, Liam asked, “Kel, what’s wrong?”
“I feel kind of stupid, now. I was letting my imagination run away with me for a bit,” I admitted. Liam frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
“I never told you because I felt sort of uneasy about it. The night of the attack at the spa, Scott held me afterward,” I said awkwardly.
“What?” His brow creased as he turned to me. I realized how it must have sounded.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I was upset, and he hugged me in the cab on the way back to the hotel. It was awkward, but I noticed something,” I continued.
Liam’s scowl deepened. “I still don’t follow what you’re getting at,” he retorted as he slowed with the Austin traffic backed up on I30.
“I noticed his cologne. He smelled like the guy who broke into my apartment,” I said as if he would catch on.
“So? What, you suspected Scott? That’s ridiculous. Any number of men could wear similar cologne.”
“And then there’s the limp…”
Liam rolled his eyes and looked back at me. “What?”
“Scott was limping on the same foot I shot the intruder.”
“He met me over there to pick me up and take me back after I dropped off your new car. I told you that,” he replied.
“Wait. You said you came together.”
“We did…sort of. I left right after he did, and I assume we got there about the same time. I heard the shots, and ran up to the apartment. He saw the intruder coming out of your window, so he followed him. He said he turned his foot when he was chasing him.”
“And then there is the tape. I forgot about the tape,” I murmured.
“Tape? What tape?”
I was right all along. I did sound crazy. I took a deep breath, wishing I’d never mentioned it.
“What tape, Kelly?” Liam demanded.
I opened my eyes, and glanced down at my hands. When the silence stretched out between us, I finally wrestled the courage to go on. I’d started this…I would finish it.
“When we were riding back from the morgue, my foot kicked something in the floorboard of the Escalade, under Scott’s seat…a roll of silver duct-tape. The same kind of duct-tape my attacker used on me in the spa,” I whispered, sounding more and more insane by the minute.
Several moments passed before I could look Liam in the eye. When I did, he studied me curiously.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything to me, Kel?” Liam asked softly.
“I guess because I knew it would sound as crazy as it just did,” I admitted. “I’m sorry I said anything. Besides, the police have Carter in custody now. I know he had a thing against women, and he was a jerk…but this,” I shook my head. “I’ve been really confused and emotional. I’m sorry I even suspected Scott. I know he’s your friend.”
“Yeah, he is. But you’re going to be my wife, and wife trumps friend. Don’t ever be afraid to tell me something, Kel.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
“Hey,” Liam called to me. I turned, and he placed his hand against my cheek. I leaned into it. “You get to tell me every little silly wifely intuition, and I’m the one who has the right to say whether it sounds crazy or not. Got it?” he demanded in the most adorable way possible.
“Yes…sir,” I smiled back at him. “I’m just ready for all of this to be over, once and for all. I just wish they would lock Carter away.” I jumped out of the SUV when the valet opened my door. Liam met me on the sidewalk with Masen on his shoulder.
“Please unload the back, and have the things in there delivered to the penthouse,” Liam instructed the valet as he ushered me inside. Once we were in the elevator, Liam switched Masen to his other shoulder, and then pulled me into his side.
“Kel, we’re close. I didn’t tell you, but Dad and I hired a private investigator, and he’s almost got enough to help the police keep Carter. I’m going to put an end to this, and I will keep you safe,” he promised, kissing my forehead.
I nodded, knowing his words were backed with conviction.
Twenty-Six
“Are you sure we’re at the right address?” I asked the real estate agent. She was short, bubbly, and I could tell very eager to make a sale.
“Yes, Mr. Covington was very specific in what he asked to see today,” she replied pertly as she glanced around the car. “I have the keys. We can go on in if you would like, Miss Sanger.”
I sat in mesmerized silence, staring at the beautiful white limestone mansion tucked neatly into the Northeast Austin hillside.
“It’s so large,” I breathed, suddenly nervous. I was thinking three bedroom ranch when Liam said house. Nothing in my wildest dreams could compare to what I was staring at.
“Would you like to go on in, Miss Sanger? Mr. Covington said he would join us very shortly,” she urged. I nodded, pushing my ca
r door open. The wide arching driveway was lined with sego palms and blooming shrubs leading up to the brick and stone steps. A massive iron chandelier hung in the two-story entry over a set of double oak doors wide enough to drive a car through.
“This is too much,” I whispered as the real estate agent smiled.
“He must be hoping for a large family,” she said, pushing the entry doors open wide. Her comment made my heart ache. She had no way of knowing it was a touchy subject for us.
“It has six bedrooms, four upstairs and the master and nursery are downstairs. There is also a game room/media room in the basement. Formal living room and dining room, breakfast room, kitchen and great room…there is even a wine cellar tucked there under the staircase.” She pointed to the oak staircase curved up the entry wall. An ornate iron gate opened to reveal a small stone room lined with iron wine racks. “The entire house is over 6,000 square feet, and there is a pool house with a small kitchen, bedroom and bath out by the swimming pool in back. There is also a four-car detached garage behind the property.”
I couldn’t imagine living in a house this large. My heart was pounding in my chest, thinking about what the taxes alone must cost on a house this size.
“How much is the property?”
“It’s a steal. The property covers more than five acres. The owners let the property go into foreclosure, and the market has been down for a couple of years now. They paid over 4.5 million to build the house five years ago. The asking price is three million.”
My heart stopped completely. What was Liam thinking?
“Um, Mrs. Oliver, I think we might need to look at something smaller,” I murmured as she dropped the large grin she’d been sporting.
“Don’t worry about cleaning this place, Hellcat, I’ll hire someone for that,” Liam announced, startling me when he bounded through the front doors. “Hey, baby,” he breathed, pulling me into his arms and placing a soft kiss on my lips. “I’m sorry, I got hung up in San Antonio this afternoon.”
“It’s fine. We just got here,” I replied, looking back and forth into his eyes. Every time I’d seen him the past two weeks I searched his face for signs he was having second thoughts. I still couldn’t believe he’d ask me to marry him and adopt Masen. The large grin on his face when he looked down at me assured me he hadn’t changed his mind.
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